Tuesday, December 16, 2014

The Christmas Cats Encounter Bats, by Constance Corcoran Wilson

Title: The Christmas Cats Encounter Bats

Author: Constance Corcoran Wilson

Publisher: Quad Cities Press

Date: September 13, 2014

Paperback: 24 pages

About the Book
The third book in the Christmas Cats adventure teaches us to honor life in all its forms. Love and accept all God's creatures. Some animals--(puppies and kitties come to mind)--are popular with nearly everyone. Others (spiders, lizards, bats, etc.) may not seem as worthy, but all are small cogs in the universe. Bats serve a very useful purpose in God's grand scheme. All life should be valued. The bats of story three are just as deserving of respect and have as much right to life as any other creature on the planet.

My Take
This book happens to be just as cute as the other one I reviewed, The Christmas Cats Chase Christmas Rats. Just like the other book, this one has a lesson that one can learn. We all have issues with certain animals and some of us take drastic measures to make sure those types of animals are not to be seen in our dwellings. For instance, like the bats in this story. The cats must go on a journey to help figure out what is making a certain sound. They find out it is a bat. Of course they don't hurt the bat and explain that it can be helpful to have them around and so we should enjoy them.

I like the fact that the author doesn't drag the story out to make a point. I know the younger a child is, they don't tend to want to sit as long and hear a story. Another good thing is that it rhymes. This is also helpful for the younger ones. It can come across more or less like a song and so they tend to enjoy it more. The bright colours in the book will also attract a lot of readers. They make the pages stand out. Lastly, but not least, there is a colouring page at the end that has the reader or child interact with the story by colouring a page and adding to the "story". Once you are done, you can email them in and see it posted on the website.

Like I stated before. This book is cute and the lesson is just as good.

About the Author
Connie graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in English
and Journalism, but she began writing for her hometown (Independence,
Iowa) newspaper at the age of 10 and was Editor-in-Chief of her high
school newspaper. She continued her education, including a Ferner/Hearst
Journalism Scholarship and a Freshman Merit Scholarship at Iowa, and
then at Berkeley, WIU, NIU and the University of Chicago. Connie holds a
Masters (+30) in English, Journalism and Education. Her career path led
to teaching 7th and 8th grade language arts (Silvis, Illinois) and
teaching writing at 6 IA/IL colleges or universities, including a class
teaching film at Black Hawk Junior College. She then established the
second Sylvan Learning Center in the state of Iowa and a Prometric
Testing site, in conjunction with ETS of Princeton, NJ. She has taught
writing and literature classes at all 6 IA/IL Quad City colleges.

Connie lives in East Moline, Illinois with husband Craig and in Chicago,
Illinois, where her son, Scott and daughter-in-law Jessica and their
newborn twins Elise and Ava reside. Her daughter, Stacey, a graduate of
Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, has been living and working
in Australia since February of 2012.

This complimentary book was given to me by the author for my honest review.